I took this photo yesterday. I felt cheap going to see this place, and I didn't even have the patience to stand in line with the rest of the rubberneckers and tourists to see the memorial exhibition. The skyscraper is turning out better than I expected. It's a fine example of the Heroic Architecture of High Finance. I imagine that cell phone users will at least benefit a little from the spire that is currently being erected at great expense and for mostly symbolic reasons. I got the sense that some group of people has figured out how to make money out of the memory of the event, but that they don't expect it to be as long lasting and successful as other parts of the city--like the Met and Times Square. At least in that regard, the spectacle is sincere and moving.
Sauron would have felt momentarily outclassed on Wall Street. He would have to take a step back and assess how to make an impact, how best to seize control of the madness. He would have to ask: what motivates these creatures? Power and gold have become so abstract, so pointless, and so carelessly strewn about that evil itself has to be imported and assigned a value for purposes of exchange. And when that servant of Morgoth erected his Dark Tower you can be sure it would have an observation deck, restaurants, and ground floor retail. No sense in not being diversified in revenue streams.
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